Archbishop and Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu has died at the age of 90. He was the symbol of anti-apartheid in South Africa.
Farewell to Desmond Tutu, archbishop and Nobel Peace Prize winner, who died in the early hours of 26 December 2021 at the age of 90. The state presidency announced this in a statement, calling his death ‘another chapter in our nation’s mourning’.
He was one of a ‘generation of formidable citizens who have contributed to the legacy of a free South Africa‘.
Desmond Tutu dead
Coming from a poor Xhosa family, the same as Nelson Mandela, Tutu understood that the system of racial segregation could not be brought down by violence but understood the anger of the oppressed: “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.
If an elephant has its paw on a mouse’s tail and you say you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality”.
Desmond Tutu dead: he received the Nobel Peace Prize
Hence his campaign of non-violent opposition to the white minority government in South Africa with which he facilitated the country’s exit from the apartheid regime. A fact that was recognised worldwide when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984.
As the first black archbishop of Cape Town, he also played a key role in the fall of the apartheid regime. As head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, he worked to ensure that the new masters did not become oppressors themselves. He put perpetrators and victims around the same table and ensured that the former asked for forgiveness and the latter agreed to forego their revenge.
